Lord of the Rings
by Shichidaime-hokage
Summary: The wizarding world has never been the same since the fall of Azkaban Island in the late fifteenth century. Sorcerers engage in wars with the magical beasts and entities. The order of hierarchy turned on its head. True power, once a fabled myth, now lies at the finger tips of the mortals.


Disclaimer: I do not own most of the characters/ideas in this story nor do I seek to profit from it.

Chapter I

The morning rain of September 1st, 1994 poured down heavily in the London borough of Islington. This did not please one of its inhabitants in particular; the protagonist of our story. Now if one looked at a specific street in this neighbourhood - Grimmauld Place its name- they would notice that there was a missing house. There were numbers 11 and 13 but no 12. This was because it happened to be the residence of our disgruntled hero and he was a wizard. Of course you would say 'what could possibly disgruntle a wizard?'. Unfortunately, the wizard in question, one Harry Potter, was no ordinary wizard, for you see... he had a _dreadful_ fear of strange noises. Not that the strange noises were surprising. No. 12 also happened to be the ancestral home of an old wizard family, the Blacks.

Presently, Harry was sitting on the stairwell leading into corridor of the first floor. Walking around only seemed to make the house groan even more. _Hmm,_ _it had been a while since he'd heard_ _a_ \- squeak! Okay now the old building was just teasing him. He didn't know if he could take one more of day it. _Good thing I leave for school today_ Harry thought to himself. True Sirius had said he would fix it... yeah right. Sirius said he'd do a lot of things, not that Harry really blamed him for not being able to. A familiar horn from outside alerted him that it was time to go. With a brief sigh, the dark-haired teenager stood up from the staircase and carried the last of his luggage to the car waiting outside. He had a train to catch.

"So, Harry, how does it feel to be entering your fourth year at Hogwarts, nervous are you?" Remus Lupin said as he started the vehicle. The tired looking man was a close friend of Harry's late parents, James and Lily Potter. He was the one that dropped Harry at the train station whenever Sirius was _otherwise_ indisposed. Schooling his features so that Remus wouldn't see that he was in a bad mood, Harry replied to the question.

"Yeah, kind of," He said with a nervous chuckle. Now that he thought about it, he didn't really know how he felt. True, becoming a mage had always been his goal long before he started at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry but he couldn't help but think of his screening at the end of the last term.

It had been in the Room of Requirement which was redesigned as an empty field. The judges were not present. Not that that meant they were really absent either. No, they would be watching him from an unseen location. Harry knew what he wanted to do and maybe it was a bit too ambitious; wandless sorcery was hard, even for humilis level mages. He didn't care though. He was going to impress the arch-mages in front of him one way or another. So when he heard the signal to start Harry began his demonstration. He had seven minutes. Seven minutes to show them some real magic.

He began by disrobing himself then rolled up his trousers and sleeves as well as emptying all his pockets. Unnecessary but he wanted to make it perfectly clear to them just what he was attempting. Raising up his hands above his head like he was lifting something, he balled his palms into fists. He heaved a sigh then released his magic in a wave! This caused it to spread all over the grassy terrain as it still needed to latch onto a force. Having recently practiced this, he waited expectantly for it to lay hold of the wind. Unfortunately, his magic seemed to be reaching for something far out of its grasp. Harry panicked at this. He prompted to look at his watch. He only had three minutes left! Then without any kind of warning, his magic stopped, becoming taut like a string stretched to its limit, yet he felt no force to control. Some seconds passed as he tried but failed to feel for the something. Anything at this point would do. This shocked Harry intensely, he couldn't actually believe he was going to fail the test. The realization washed over him with the numbing effect of cold water splashing on his body. _This can't be happening, it just can't be_ Harry thought morosely to himself. All of a sudden he felt his magic give a strong pulse and the wind swirled around him wildly. Though thoroughly confused on what just happened Harry knew this was his final chance. Albeit, this was going to be the _extremely_ hard part; the textbooks hadn't given instructions on it at all. And so it was with trembling hands that he tried to accomplish this feat, only to find himself flung back by a strong gust of wind. Shrugging it off, he raised his hands once again to control it. He wasn't sure if he had really seen it, but for the slightest of seconds, he could've sworn the whole area went green. By now a near full fledged hurricane had risen but Harry soldiered on; oh he would make this storm succumb. Finally it responded, a little swirling at his feet and steadily rising as it carried Harry at its center. It took all of Harry's strength just to sustain the medium height tornado without being thrown away again; at this point he was making laboured grunts from the stress of it alone. Soon, however, his concentration broke and the tornado dissipated. As he fell to the ground the wind carried him like a feather, it was his now.

He lay there while breathing heavily for a few moments when he felt the air ripple. He craned his head up to see his examiners before him. They were the heads of house. This didn't really surprise Harry, he hadn't been expecting anyone different.

"Mr. Potter," a stern female voice called out, "Kindly rise for your assessment,". It was that of Professor Mcgonagall, the Gryffindor head of house. She didn't seem angry so that was a good sign.

"Sure, just give me a minute," He said casually before crookedly standing up, "Honesty, who knew wind could be so destructive eh?"

"I must say Mr. Potter, you gave quite an unusual display," the shortest figure among them spoke. _Why would Professor Flitwick say that? Didn't he see me controlling that tornado from the center? Did any of them-_

"Harry?" Remus asked, breaking Harry out of his reverie.

"Yes Remus?"

"Oh you looked a bit out of it," the older man said, "Anyway, I was just telling you not to worry about today. Even your father got scared for a second there. Thought he hadn't heard his name on the Rescript! He spent the rest of the evening offhandedly commenting on how he was going to drop out of the school. To this day, that was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

"Seriously!?" Harry said. Now that was surprising. From the stories he'd heard of his father, he thought the young James would have demanded they recall it, saying that there must have been a mistake.

"Seriously," Remus said with a grin on his face. He was happy to have brought Harry out of his mood.

Soon enough, they both reached Kings Cross Station and unloaded Harry's luggage. Remus then escorted Harry to a wall between platforms nine and ten. This, they passed through to reach the Hogwarts platform nine and three-quarters.

"Okay then Harry, remember to keep yourself sharp and try not to get into any funny business okay?"

"I'll try," Harry said with a sly grin on his face. It had been pointless for him to tell Harry that; the only real pranksters at Hogwarts were the Weasley twins. Not that Remus needed to know that, it was fun to keep the illusion that he was alive.

After Remus said his goodbyes, Harry spent the next few minutes searching his friends once he got on the Hogwarts Express. As he passed through some other students he bumped into someone. When they both turned around to apologize to each other, Harry immediately recognized the boy. It was his year mate Neville Longbottom.

"Oh hey Harry," he said, already turning away.

"Where're you running off to like that?"

Neville gave Harry a grin."I'm on my way to the third carriage, Weasley's not the only that's got connections y'know," He said, "See you later".

He was off, leaving Harry bemused in his wake. Maybe also a little bit jealous. The third carriage was where the mage students rode on the train, and Weasley and Longbottom got to get in before they were even announced. He shrugged nonchalantly, that was life he guessed.

Lucky for him he found his friends' compartment quickly. "Hey guys, it's Harry!" Justin Finch-Fletchley said as he entered. The other two occupants of the compartment exchanged greetings with him as well; the usual 'How was your summer' or 'Did you travel anywhere'. Not that Harry minded, he just wanted to start their typical order of business.

"So did you bring the stuff Ernie?" He asked, gesturing to one of the other two boys . Ernie merely gave him a sarcastic eye roll as he pulled out a device from his pocket. It was a wizard wireless, a magical machine that acted basically as a muggle radio. They were going to need it they wanted to hear the inauguration ceremony of the Aquila Guild. It had become a sort of tradition for them to do this sort of thing since they had first met each other in their first year.

Once the stout boy finished tuning in to the wireless network, the boys waited in anticipation. By Harry's calculations it should have started right about that time. Some minutes passed by when the first sound of interference was heard. Now they were getting somewhere. Eventually they started to make out the voice of the head of the guild, Julian Shaklebolt. The boys whooped and high-fived before refocusing on what the man was saying.

 _"This great event marks the 212th magus inauguration of our prestigious guild and I would_ _like to welcome..."_ At this point Harry started to tune out the man's voice, he would pay attention when the man started to call out names. The others just listened raptly as the man gave his 'distinguished' speech. As if they didn't hear Dumbledore give one every start of term.

 _"... , Anton Yurevich, Gregor Meivlin and Adalie Hollande. These five-"_ Ernie quietly turned off the wireless. The boys were all shocked by this; not one Hogwarts graduate had been called. Worse, the guild's head was an alumni of the school and he still felt that the foreign talent was better. They simply sat speechless and dumbfounded until Wayne, the fourth member of their group, finally suggested they play some exploding game. This indeed proved a worthwhile distraction until the time came for them to change into their school robes. It was evening by then.

The Hogwarts Express left once all the students had come off. Harry and his friends had found a carriage to take them to the castle by then. Their ride to the school gates had been uneventful asides from Wayne briefly making fun of Justin's fear of the forbidden forest. As he stepped off the carriage he once again saw Neville- this time with Ron- as they joked around with some older year mages. This didn't help his doubt about his performance at the screening. They just seemed so confident of their chances.

One thing was for sure, Hogwarts knew to conduct a feast. The great hall also looked splendid as it was illuminated by levitated candles and its ceiling mirrored the night sky. The sorting hat sang another marvelous song to begin this year's sorting ceremony. Professor Mcgonagall then began calling the names of the first year students to be sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

Harry cheered along with his housemates every time someone was sorted into the badger house, albeit half-heartedly. All he could think of was the Mage-Line Rescript later on. It wo-

"Geez Potter, if you stare any harder at Dumbledore I might have reevaluate your sexual orientation!" Called out a random voice along the table. That drew a few stares from his surrounding house mates. Was he really that obvious? Harry looked down the table to see who it was. Not surprisingly, Zacharias Smith was right there smirking at him. He was another boy in his year who liked to hang around the older years. Unlike Weasley and Longbottom however, he didn't have any natural talent backing him up.

"Take a hint Smith, no one's laughing," Harry bit back.

"Though I guess it's pretty obvious what's got you in such a mood this evening," He continued, choosing to ignore Harry's statement. More people suddenly got interested in the confrontation.

"Oh yeah and what's that?" Harry replied, deciding to call other boy's bluff. After all he did enjoy being a dick in general quite often and was most likely trying to wind him up. This however seemed to be the response Smith was waiting for and smiled predatorily at Harry. Too bad Harry found him far too obnoxious to be even remotely intimidating.

"Well it's clearly th-"

"Oh please Zach, let's not pretend as if you're not biting your nails over this as well," another voice spoke, cutting him off , "Plus, Harry's probably got a better chance than you". It belonged to Susan Bones. For some reason Smith decided to stop talking after this. Harry was a little thankful for that intervention and turned to speak to her. Sadly she had already gone back to chatting to her friends meanwhile Justin patted him on the back sympathetically once he saw were Harry's eyes followed. It was weird how she did that at times. Ignoring him then out of the blue speaking up for him. If only he could get rid of the ignoring him part. She was a fairly attractive witch after all.

Soon enough all the first years were sorted and the hall became quiet. They were getting to the good stuff now. Professor Dumbledore rose from his seat at the teachers' table and proceeded to where the hat and stool previously stood. He then followed this by conjuring a table and summoning a small rolled piece of paper. As he unfolded it, the small paper became a large parchment. To Harry, the procedure was still as fascinating as it had been in his first year. Possibly even more so this year.

"Eh hem, First and foremost I would like to welcome you all to this new school year, especially the new first year students, Secondly I would like to remind the students that Mr. Filch requests there be no after curfew tom-foolery/ damaging of school property/disturbance in the hallways, **thirdly** there is to be no use of magic on Mr. Filch and finally for medi level magus students alone, enter the forbidden forest at your own risk, to all others it is forbidden as the name implies," Dumbledore said.

"And now I would like to begin one of our school's longest traditions: the mage-line rescript. It is not only a mark of our school's prestige and rich history, it has also- in recent history- been the spark for the magical curiosity and ingenuity within the minds of young hogwarts students such as yourselves for generations long past," He spoke, presently in the full swing of his speech. "For those that are called on today may not only step into the world as scholars of this majestic force that binds us but as knights of all wizard kind! Aye Aye!"

"Aye Aye" the whole hall responded back.

The grey-bearded headmaster paused, presumably to catch his breath, before continuing "So we shall start from the seventh year maguses: Adrian Belby, Kristen Maxworth, Ny...". At the moment, Harry's heart was pounding so loudly he couldn't hear the voice of anyone else. He'd failed the screening. He had seen some of these people perform sorcery before- what he had done was merely a magician's trick in comparison. He'd failed so... _Wait a minute-_ _s_ _ince when had this become_ _a life or death_ _situation for me?_ No, he needed to clear his mind of all that now. It didn't matter that he be just like his father and Sirius . Yeah, being a mage would be cool but not being one wasn't the end of the world. No, it also didn't matter that he stand with the other mages either or be better than Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom. Honestly, it scared that he thought of that last one enough for it to even cross his mind. _Was- am I really so consumed by this? That couldn't be true, could it? One thing was for certain though, I a-_

"Harry!" someone next to him yelled, breaking him out of his thoughts. _And I was right about to have an epiphany._

"What is it Justin?" He asked tiredly. At the moment, he just wanted to sleep.

"Mate your name was just called on the Rescript!" Ernie supplied .

"Really?" He asked dumbly.

"Yeah you, Longbottom and Weasley were the only ones from our year called, though I think people were mostly interested in you". Harry was wide awake now. He couldn't believe it! He'd made the Rescript! And ahead of the pricks like Malfoy and Smith to boot! Yea, he'd had a moment there but it could be sorted out later. Right now, He wanted to take in the current admiration. This was going to be fun.

Sadly, in this case only the opposite was true. It was the same across every other table, they all simply stared at him. Was he some new sort of Hufflepuff symbol or something? Even while they whispered excitedly to each other, they continued give him long, appraising looks. A particular emotion playing on their faces. Was it awe? Or more likely respect? He didn't know why, but he felt much more akin to a prized pony now than a dignified person.

Still, Ernie's statement wasn't too surprising though. Neville and Ron had been touted as mages since first year. Harry on the other hand was an unknown quantity who now stood amongst the two supposed magical 'juggernauts' of their year. Apparently Dumbledore had also announced that they should stay behind with the other first year mages for information on their new class timetables once the feast was over.

As it came to pass, all he did was give them a sheet with their revised class schedules and told them that their house masters would now be their actual mentors, in the strictest sense of the word. The job fell unto the head of houses to teach their students the art of sorcery. A few students murmured about this though there was nothing really spectacular about it. Then again, they had _interesting_ housemasters. For all her other merits, Professor Sprout didn't look to be the most thrilling of people.

Later that night, Harry lay in bed, quietly contemplating the evening's events. The rest of his dorm mates had already gone to sleep. Strangely enough, the whole night hadn't brought him the happiness he thought it would. The initial elation he'd had when he learnt that his name was announced had quickly died. He had expected to gain at least some closure from tonight's occasion. Alas, as Harry Potter went to bed that night, issues in his mind lay unresolved. The entire day neither good nor bad. Simply _grey_ , for lack of a better term, like a foreshadowing cast by the morning's cloudy sky.

Meanwhile, in the farthest depths of the forest, a man stood crouched in front of a small hill. His dark eyes surveying the small body of water before him. _Riddle says the artifact should be somewhere here but I can't trace anything_ Rayner said. This would definitely be the last time he took on another side mission for him. It had been two years since he'd been sent on this goose chase, two whole years! Not even one, but two! Too bad he couldn't just abandon it; the man had his ways of some how tracking his movements.

And so with a resigned will, he tried for what was probably the hundredth time that day to sense any magical residue in the area. Simply to check if it was maybe nearby. All that came up pointed towards the pond once again. _Oh that's actually really funny, hehehe_ Rayner thought hysterically. This assignment was going to be the death of him.

Author's Notes: Leave a review to help a brother out! For those of you who have read my old chapters(can't really call them stories since they only had one part), I promise to keep updating this one. I've even gotten a beta reader now to ensure there will be much fewer mistakes. So as I said before, a review would be nice.


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